Bob Woodward criticizes IRS ‘fiction’

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward says the Obama administration has explaining to do on the IRS scandal and needs to answer questions about who knew what, when.

“This fiction that somehow [The IRS is] totally an independent agency is absurd,” the legendary journalist said Monday on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, saying that in the Nixon era, the Treasury secretary refused to audit Democratic groups when the IRS commissioner was asked to do so by the White House.

Woodward said he would put in a request to the administration for more information about the nearly 150 times former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman was cleared to go to the White House, saying, “They should get on top of this story.”

“Much hangs in the balance here, not just the reputation of the news media for aggressiveness and some form of neutrality, but the whole relationship that the White House and the government has with the public about trust. … I think Obama can get ahead of this and really answer some of these questions,” Woodward said.

“This is not Watergate at all, but the road to Watergate is concealment, is not coming clean. … ‘Let’s call executive privilege; let’s stonewall.’ And if they do that, they will dig themselves in a hole.”